(Untitled)

[kaycee_a]

I am so sore. I think it started from playing Wii Sports (my fitness level, as determined by my ability to hit home runs, knock over combinations of bowling pins, and return tennis balls--in bounds--was 73, then 55, then 71. Not good.), continued through sitting for two hours during My Bloody Valentine with my shoulders up to my ears and jumping

Comments

[akarui_sekai]

Yeah, 'hillbilly music' was the show's own term for it. They made it sound like hillbilly later evolved into country. I was curious myself, so I went to Wikipedia.

"During the pre-World War II years, the music industry began to refer to honky tonk music being played from Texas and Oklahoma to the West Coast as hillbilly music. More recently, the term has come to refer to the primary sound in country music, developing in Nashville as Western swing became accepted there. Originally, it featured the guitar, fiddle, string bass, and steel guitar (imported from Hawaiian folk music). The vocals were originally rough and nasal, as exemplified by singer-songwriters Floyd Tillman and Hank Williams, but later developed a clear and sharp sound, such as that of singers George Jones and Johnny Paycheck. Lyrics tended to focus on working-class life, with frequently tragic themes of lost love, adultery, loneliness, alcoholism, and self-pity."

You know, there was a time when I would be curious about something like that, and just let it go. Not anymore. ^^ And to think that before last night I didn't even know who Hank Williams was. I feel edjumacated! ^_~

[msktrnanny]

Interesting given where 'hillbillies' lived. However, while it may have been what they called it, not everyone liked it. Also from Wikipedia:

"Hillbilly music was at one time considered an acceptable label for what is now known as country music. However, some artists and fans, notably Hank Williams Sr., found the term offensive even in its heyday. The label, coined in 1925 by country pianist Al Hopkins,[1] persisted until the 1950s.

Now, the older name is widely deemed offensive (and inappropriate). However, the term hillbilly music is now sometimes used to describe old-time music. An early tune that contained the word hillbilly was "Hillbilly Boogie" by the Delmore Brothers in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, there were records by a band called the Beverly Hillbillies. In 1927, the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana, made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker with other instrumentalists; their recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files, and were marketed to a white audience. Also during the 1920s, an old-time music band known as the Hill Billies featuring Al Hopkins and Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman, achieved acclaim as recording artists for Columbia Records. By the late forties, radio stations broadcast music described as "hillbilly," originally to describe fiddlers and string bands, but was then used to describe the traditional music of the people of the Appalachian Mountains. The people who actually sang these songs and lived in the Appalachian Mountains never used these terms to describe their own music."

How the term came about actually doesn't have much in the way of positive meaning, even now. Language reclamation is a very tricky business and to be effective requires everyone who knows of it's derogatory implications to die. Then unexposed people can pick the word up again with a new definition. It's no wonder we have such a hard time moving past words.

[akarui_sekai]

Interesting! ^^

Well, I think most people are aware that 'hillbilly' is an offensive term in and of itself. That's part of what made it interesting that it was being bandied about so freely in the show as a term for that type of music, ostensibly by characters from that area. I can't remember for sure whether the Hank Williams character ever used it - maybe he didn't, if your folks there have it right and he specifically objected to it. There certainly exist words that are acceptable when coming from a member of the group they describe but offensive from an outsider. But the source you quote claims that the people making the music never referred to it as such. (I guess the people who wrote the play didn't read that article.) Who knows?

Anyway. Neither Kate nor I meant it in any offensive way. It'd be nice if we could let all the derogatory implications of words like that just die, but sadly, as long as there are people who use them in a derogatory fashion, that's not going to happen. Unfortunate really.